The CRS is a Congressional "think tank" with a staff of around 700. Reports are commissioned by members of Congress on topics relevant to current political events. Despite CRS costs to the tax payer of over $100M a year, its electronic archives are, as a matter of policy, not made available to the public.

Individual members of Congress will release specific CRS reports if they believe it to assist them politically, but CRS archives as a whole are firewalled from public access.

This report was obtained by Wikileaks staff from CRS computers accessible only from Congressional offices.

On December 8, 2006, the House passed legislation (212-184) to grant Vietnam permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status as part of a more comprehensive trade bill (H.R. 6406). Pursuant to H.Res. 1100, the bill was then coupled with a taxextension bill (H.R. 6111) and sent to the Senate. The Senate passed the combined bills (79-9) on December 8. On December 20, 2006, President Bush signed the bill into law (P.L.109-432) and, per the law, proclaimed PNTR for Vietnam on December 29, 2006. The legislation also codified a provision of the U.S.-Vietnam bilateral agreement on Vietnam's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) authorizing the reimposition of quotas on imports of textiles or wearing apparel, if Vietnam subsidizes those industries in violation of WTO rules.